Introduction to the Eglu

Meet Amelia,
Honey, and Tilda — an Ameraucana, Buff Orpington, and Rhode Island Red,
respectively. We keep our little flock of three in an Eglu, which has an
egg-shaped hen house attached to a wire-enclosed run. As a family with just a
few birds, the predator-proof Eglu has worked out really well for us. With only
three girls to lay for us, we don't have any to spare!

The house itself
is made of plastic, which is easy to keep clean, and has a sturdy door with
latches tricky enough to resist even the clever hands of raccoons. We've seen
fishers, foxes, bears, hawks, skunks, and raccoons pass through our yard, and
the only close call we had was a raccoon jiggling the door of the egg port. We
chased her away and she either didn't come back or never had any luck getting
into the chicken vault.

The wire run is
completely enclosed, with a domed roof to thwart flying predators. We once saw a
hawk perched on top of the run, with the girls huddling for their lives inside
the house! The run also has a collar that folds out along the ground to keep
diggers from tunneling into the coop.

The drawback to
the coop is that the house is so small it doesn’t make good winter quarters. We
live in the northeast with long stretches of below-freezing weather, and while
the Eglu’s house is great for sleeping, it doesn’t give the hens room to roam in
an area that’s safe from snow and wind. To solve that, we move the coop into our
garage in the winter, and pile hay in the run, which we muck out once a week.
The advantage to that set-up is that we can leave the lights on to simulate 14
hours of daylight and we get eggs all winter.

We haven’t had
much of a winter this year. By the middle of February it seemed like winter
wasn’t going to come at all so we moved the coop outdoors again. Of course then
it snowed. No matter though, the weather warmed quickly, and the girls have had
a ball scratching in the thawed ground.

These three
chickens have been great friends to us. They’ve been more like pets than
livestock, really. We can’t bear to part with them, but they’re four years old
and don’t lay reliably anymore. Since our coop can’t accommodate any more birds,
we are laying plans to build a larger coop in the backyard. Rather than getting
a heap of new chicks and having more eggs than we know what to do with, the plan
is to upsize slowly, about three new birds every year or two to keep our
refrigerator stocked.

We’ll have the
Eglu to help us transition new birds into the flock slowly. Since we let our
chickens roam freely during the afternoons and on weekends when we’re close to
home, we figure they can meet during their free-range time and move into the
same housing once they’re used to each other. Any tips on introducing new birds
to an established flock are welcome!

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First and foremost you must quarantine for at least 30 days if you aren't raising your birds from chicks. Next like the previous person posted place them in a pen inside your pen, then after they are big enough to fend for themselves wait until night when the girls are on the roost and then set the new bird right next to them. Sometimes the new birds will wake up in the morning and be like "why have I never noticed these other birds here before." and sometimes not, so leave your little pen in the big pen in case the younger birds need a place to hide. A ton of information can be found on backyard chickens.com. In fact I found this site from that site so I'm sure MEN wouldn't mind me giving that site a plug.

Connie Milliff

4/14/2012 2:11:36 AM

I put the new chicks in a pen (the eglu would work) inside my big chicken pen. The small chickens are protected from pecking, and the larger hens get used to their presence. After several weeks, I let the new chicks out into the main pen. There might be a little bullying, but not for long. If the larger hens are too aggressive, I keep the smaller pen inside with a small enough opening for the chicks, but too small for the grown hens. It gives the small chicks a refuge. It never really has been necessary. My large pen is about 14 x 14 including the house (which is 6 x 8). I have had about 20 banties in it, but now have 10 Americaunas and 2 banties.

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